Steven enjoyed his meal and spent more time in the futuristic shower than he should have. His clothes had a self-cleaning enchantment on them, but it didn’t change the fact there was a long cut between the shoulders and several rips from the previous battles. He thought about seeing if he could find someone that could temporarily mend it with a few stitches, but ultimately decided against it as he would just be going back into battle soon anyway.

Laying in bed, he considered the note which contained advice from the Felqwurst family head. It said his power was only limited by his imagination, but as far as he could tell he was really only limited by his attributes. Maybe a little doubt as well, though the more attributes he eventually gains the less doubt he’ll have in his abilities. Hopefully, he’ll have little issue with the Skeletal Blend with Garth’s help, and then he’ll be free to absorb some more monsters.

The next morning, or same day as he wasn’t really sure if the sun even had cycles, Steven woke and ordered a light breakfast of a singular waffle spread with blueberry jam. After breakfast, he stretched and did some light exercises, during which he discovered that it was now possible for him to complete 200 one armed push-ups without breaking a sweat. Before his untimely death, he could barely balance on one arm in the push-up position.

The discovery resonated with him, and while he got dressed his thoughts were absorbed with rethinking how he moved during battle. After he laced his boots, he sat in the desk chair and tried to empty his mind. It was good to think about ways to improve, but he had to focus on the specific battle ahead.

To defeat the skeleton monster they had to destroy its heads. The only strategy he could come up with, however, was to keep the monster’s attention while Garth shot at the heads with his Light Shot ability. He made a mental note to discuss this strategy with Garth, and decided to go explore the recreational area instead of waiting for the other man to come get him.

Pulling the cumbersome axe he got from the minotaur out of his pouch, he stashed it under his bed and after careful consideration decided to leave the leg folded up in his bag, figuring it would smell bad the next time he was able to come back and rest. He made his way out of the room to the nearest unoccupied pool table and started pulling the balls out and placing them in the rack.

“Let me do that,” Garth said, standing near the end of the table. “You break.”

For a man wearing heels, Steven thought Garth was more sneaky than he had any right to be. He stepped away and let Garth rack the balls while he chalked the cue.

“I’ll warn you right now,” said Steven, “I’m horrendously bad at this game.” He blew chalk off the end of the stick and placed the cue ball on the table. He lined up his shot and with a loud crack, sent the balls rolling over the tabletop without sinking a single one.

“Does the sun ever set here? I’ve never seen it move,” Steven asked while Garth lined up a shot and put a solid down a hole.

“No, you could even touch the sun if you wanted. It’s not that far up,” Garth replied, putting another solid into a corner pocket. He lined up another shot and the object ball bounced around, clinking into a few others. “It doesn’t rise, set, or move at all. There are competitions every now and again to see who can get to it first.”

“That’s so weird,” Steven said, shaking his head. “How would you even get up there?” He lined up his next shot and popped the cue ball. It completely missed the target and bounced off the cushions.

Garth took the ball in hand and placed near an easy shot and put another solid into a side pocket. “That’s easy,” Garth said as he moved across the table, sinking another ball. “You jump.”

“Oh, well, of course. Jumping to the sun, yeah,” Steven said sarcastically as he watched Garth put the rest of the solid balls into a pocket. “Anyway, my challenge. We have to destroy the heads of the skeleton. There are three, and then it will be dead. Its heads are sitting on top of a ball of bones held up by three skeletal legs.”

“Let me guess, three arms too?”

“That’s right. One with a giant sword, one shield, and the third with a shortsword.”

“It’s annoying there are no organs to hit or muscles to sever. Eight ball, side pocket,” said Garth and hit the eight ball right into the side pocket he indicated. He placed the cue on the table. “That’s the problem with skeletons and elemental types.”

Steven put his cue down and started rolling the balls across the table, aiming for the pockets. “I was thinking I could just keep it distracted while you shot its head with the yellow balls.”

Garth remained silent as Steven cleaned off the rest of the table. When all the balls were put away and the cues stored, which took longer than it should because Steven refused to actually drop the balls into the pockets and instead rolled them continuously to the furthest hole, he finally spoke.

“I can put targets on the heads, but they only increase damage to attacks by ten percent. My shots don’t do much damage, so it's not very effective,” he said, “instead, I want you to take the lead and basically fight the monster the way you want. I’ll play support. I still have a couple abilities you might find worthwhile. If you get killed, I’ll reset and distract while you come back.”

“Ok, just don’t sacrifice yourself this time to put a bunch of targets on it,” Steven said as they made their way to the Red Eye, “also, where do I pay for my meal and room here?”

Garth pointed to a small hole cut out in the wall beside the door to the rooms. Above the cut out was another keyhole.

“Key goes in the keyhole, and your gemmed hand in the larger hole. The system will remove the mana you owe.”

“I much prefer the Matron,” Steven said as he did what Garth instructed. When he placed the key in its slot, his room number lit up in the space between the holes. After the bottom recess took his mana for payment, he opened his status page to look at the amount of mana that remained.

He had 512 mana total, his meal and whatever he owed on the room was around 80 mana. That meant he had been in the dungeon for over a week. That just didn’t seem right. The time was really messing with his head. It simultaneously seemed longer and shorter.

With all business taken care of, Steven asked, “You ready to go?”

After receiving an affirmative from Garth, Steven tapped on the Red Eye and pulled up the transport menu. He selected the dungeon option, and then focused on the Y next to Floor 1. After a few anxious seconds, the teleportation began and the lobby disappeared around him.

They reappeared next to a glowing Red Eye in an open space with the same grey sky and endless stone ground that Steven remembered. He could see the tombstones sticking out of the ground in the distance. He cast his eyes about to locate the boss monster, hoping to be able to get the jump on it.

The giant ball of bones was already advancing towards them. Thankfully, it wasn’t doing its cartwheel. He guessed they were close enough that it didn’t need to.

“Have you ever seen War of the Worlds?” Garth asked, pulling a new staff out of his bag. It was longer than his previous rod by a couple of feet, and it had a head on one end while sharpened to a point on the other. The head of the staff resembled a tennis racket without the strings on the inside. It looked to be made out of stained light brown wood.

“The Tom Cruise one? Never got around to it.”

“Who is Tom Cruise? Eh, never mind, go make it mad.”

Steven ran forward and focused on his left forearm to cast Mimic Growth: Heater Shield. The shield barely formed in time for him to deflect a glancing blow from the monster’s greatsword as he slid between its legs. The Skeletal Blend, apparently unable to turn quickly, focused its attention on Garth, who was firing small yellow balls at the monster’s faces.

He took a moment to cast Partial Mimicry: Rat Tail on his right arm below the elbow. When the tail finished replacing his arm, he slung it as far as it could go and wrapped the tip around a bone to hoist himself up onto the skeleton ball’s back. Jamming his feet in as far as he could to make footholds, he repeated the process again to pull himself closer to the heads.

The monster had raised its shield in front of the heads to block the incoming shots from Garth, and the arm with the shortsword had turned completely around to deliver stabs at Steven. Steven blocked the blows with his shield as he dug his feet into new footholds of the skeleton’s back.

Dismissing the rat tail, he grabbed on to a random bone with his shielded hand so he wouldn’t fall off the monster and cast Mimic Growth: Shortsword on his free hand. The sword burst forth from his hand, and he jabbed it into the back of the monster’s left most skull.

The sword didn’t bite into bone and slid off the side of the skull. He reared up to slash downward on the monster’s head when he felt a searing pain in his left thigh. Glancing down, the monster had managed to stab its shortsword an inch into his leg and was trying to shove it further in. Though not a debilitating wound, it still hurt. Ignoring the pain, he returned to his task of stabbing the skull to find that all three skulls had turned to face him. Each glowing eye socket was covered by a yellow target.

He took his chance and jammed the sword into the eye socket of the skull he had previously tried to stab. The sword exited the back of the skull, and the entire monster crumbled, covering Steven in a pile of bones. As he frantically tried to dig his way out, the Skeletal Blend began to pull itself back together again.

He had barely cleared the pile of bones before it completed reforming and ran around its side to stand by Garth as it pulled itself up. The skeletal blend was now smaller and had only two arms, the greatsword and shield, and two legs. It turned around to face them, and they could see two skulls with glowing eyes between its legs. The ground was littered with bones not used to reform its body.

“One down, two to go,” said Garth.

“First one to crack its balls wins!” Steven yelled as he dashed forward, dismissing his abilities, and powered up an absorption powered punch.